Monday, February 18, 2013

SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs - Presidents' Day 2013 Edition

Happy Presidents' Day to every USA reader. As for everyone else, it is just an ordinary day. Actually, for many USA readers it is still an ordinary day. This edition of SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs will make today special with five tracks from five video games. We have music from Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Let's Tap, and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Let's "hurry up" and get to the first song.

While this song takes a little while to get going, Wario should be on the move the entire time, as he runs and tumbles his way towards the goal. Hurrying up is the aim of each level's conclusion, and the faster the player performs this action, the less time they'll have to hear the horrifying end to this song!

Sitting near the top of the best Game Boy themes, Super Mario Land 2's Athletic theme is a super catchy theme. Not only that, but alternate takes of the theme are played throughout the game. The composer, Kazumi Totaka, is a well known name in Nintendo circles. He has composed the music for many memorable games, including Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, and Luigi's Mansion, to name a few.

DK: King of Swing is one of my more liked Game Boy Advance (notice how it is Advance and not Advanced) games. It was a unique take on the Donkey Kong Country formula, having levels with bonus barrels and hidden secrets, but combining all that with a Clu Clu Land feeling. I urge you to pick up either this game or DK: Jungle Climber, the Nintendo DS sequel.

Let's Tap was a severely overlooked game by Prope, a studio founded by Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka. The Wii title had players placing their Wii remotes onto a cardboard slab that came with the game and had them tapping the slab to interact with the various mini-games. It was a novel, but quite eccentric, idea that didn't do too well financially. At least the game had this insanely catchy main theme attached to it.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was the sole entry in the Kingdom Hearts franchise on the PSP. After 358/2, Re:Coded, Chain of Memories, and this game, it was fair to say that even the most addicted fans were getting a bit tired of all of the spin-offs. That showed with the sales of Kingdom Hearts 3D.

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With that, another edition of SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs has concluded. Next week we'll have five more songs from five more games. If you missed a previous installment of this SPC segment, then check out the VGM Database where every song featured is listed.